Session 5 - A Field of Thought

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To what extent do we have free choice? I wouldn't say we really have free choice, at least not as much as we may think we do. There is very little free choice, and in the end, even the little that we do have we take it all from the environment. It's a question of "trend or friends" who seemingly happen to be around me, instilling all kinds of values in me, which are less or more important. I, for instance, lived by the river, so I loved jumping in and swimming there for hours, and so this love for the water continues to this day.

We also need to understand that "recollections" from experiences we've had in our previous lives, appear in us. Those recollections are pieces of information from previous lives that we call "incarnations," and it is through them that we develop. I don't merely mean that each time I'm born as a baby in a more modern society that I develop through it, but that within me, within the human being, new tendencies appear in each and every generation, which we call "recollections," through which we develop.

We feel it especially vividly today, in our children, who are grasping new technologies much better and faster than we are. It's as if they were born with the features, scrutinies, and qualities that prepare them to properly perceive the world and get along in modern life. They get along with cellphones, computers, and the rest of the new technologies extremely well, while we are not adapting to these new technologies as well as they are. If I need to learn something about some new technology, I rely on my kids to teach me more than on myself because they already have an approach to these things. It's as if they were born prepared to look at everything by its nature. They approach all the innovations and understand them as if they were indigo children, as though they landed from outer space into our world in a spacecraft.

We can deduce from our children's preparation for the modern world that there must be "recollections" in us, information genes that evolve and continue from generation to generation.

Where do these genes come from? We call them "incarnations," but in truth, we're not talking about any kind of mysticism here. What is operating is the fact that we're all connected, and we are all now discovering this, since there is an electromagnetic field, a gravitational force that's acting everywhere. There is a general field of thought, a desire that connects us all above time and distance, and we are all in that field. This is how we convey to one another the information we acquire from generation to generation. It is no wonder that our bodies, which are in this field, absorb the information, which is why we see that the new generation is specially prepared for life in the new state of human development—the new era.

References

"Especially in contrast with our subjective sense of the determined past, the experience of our own behavior in the present seems particularly spontaneous and "free." Because we do not experience at the same time all of the unconscious influences and impulses that produced that behavior."

"The power is in the system. The system creates the situation that corrupts the individuals, and the system is the legal, political, economic, cultural background. And this is where the power is of the bad-barrel makers."

Engage Yourself

Question 1: According to the text of the lesson, how does every newborn generation obtain the huge amount of information acquired in the world from all eras of existence?

1. In every generation, the brains are simply very well-developed, hence, each generation can acquire additional information.

2. We are joined in a collective field of thought which includes all generations and all the information acquired in them, thus, we arrive in the world prepared to know and understand in each and every generation.

3. Relatively speaking, in each generation an equal amount of information is added, so that the task of obtaining knowledge is equal in all generations.

4. We receive knowledge of previous generations by heredity, through the genes.

Question 2: According to "classic" genetics, our parents, their parents and ancestors bequeath their genes to us, and that's all. If the experience they have and the experiences they accumulated throughout their life do not accumulate and are never transmitted, they disappear forever. Yet, a relatively new area in biology, epigenetics, proves that we transmit much more than our genetic baggage from generation to generation. Interesting?

Before you approach carrying out this lesson's tasks, you're invited to join us for the last 3 minutes of a BBC film on the topic of epigenetics. Watching this video clip will help us understand what the "incarnations" are in the present lesson. [link to video clip is here, if needed. Note: This clip begins at 5m46sec.]

a. Were you aware of this area of biological science before encountering this material? What are your thoughts and feelings about the area of biology called epigenetics?

In order to complete the picture of "incarnations," watch the short explanation of the theory of the renowned psychologist, Carl Jung, on the collective subconscious. [link to video is here, if needed]

b. Do you see how these areas of scientific study are interconnected, and how these findings reshape the way we see our world? What are your thoughts about this material?

Question 3: Dr. John A. Bargh is a social psychologist who conducted many studies in the area of the subconscious processes in the social behavior of human beings. In addition, he focused on the topic of free will. In his book, “Are we free? The Psychology of Free Will,” he states:

“Treating free will as a force outside the laws of nature ... is similar to how intuition and creativity have long been popularly viewed as being due to some kind of mysterious “spark” or quasi-magical process. ... The argument that the phenomenon is an originator and not itself caused by some other process is actually just an admission that we don’t know what causes it; as Spinoza put it, 'men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.'” [note: Spinoza was a Jewish-Dutch philosopher from the 17th century]

a. With reference to Dr. John Bargh’s words, and based on what was discussed in the transcript text of this lesson regarding free choice, did Dr. John Bargh himself choose to be a social psychologist? Did he write this book out of his own free will?

No

Other

Partly Yes and Partly No

We don't know

Yes

Explain your choice, and if you selected “Other,” please specify and explain:

b.. The following is a video clip you were asked to watch in one of the recent study sessions, and the same questions you were requested to answer then. Now, after becoming familiar with social psychologist Dr. John Bargh's words, please answer the questions once more, after replaying the video clip below. [link to video here, if needed. Note: It starts at 16sec .]

Please write which desire is aroused in you now? A desire for:

Can you specify where those desires stemmed from in you?

Do you feel you had the option of controlling those desires?

Compare your present answers to the ones you wrote in the previous study session [Unit 3, Session 2, Question 1] with reference to this video clip. Did you find any differences? If so, try to surmise what influenced your difference in opinion.

Question 4: a. For this part of question 4, choose 1 of the 2 following tasks and complete it in the textbox below:

1. Write a short poem in rhyme on the topic of "free will" or "free choice."

OR

2. In short, relate to the topic of free choice. (What is your opinion, do you identify with it or object?)

b. Do you feel you chose a particular task of the 2 tasks given to you, freely?